Rhubarb is a perennial plant that grows well in cool climates. The stalks are edible, but it’s sometimes planted as an ornamental plant because of its beautiful, vibrant red stalks and wide green leaves. Consumed raw, rhubarb has an intensely tart flavor that’s not generally liked. But toss it with sugar and bake it into cake, pie, shortbread or jam, and rhubarb’s bitterness fades and becomes delicious. Botanically, a fruit contains seeds and vegetables consist of leaves, stalks and roots. That definitely makes rhubarb a vegetable, but the U.S. Customs Court legally classified rhubarb as a fruit in 1947. Since it is most often used to make sweet desserts (like other fruits), they deemed that importers shouldn’t have to pay the higher vegetable tax on the stalks. Rhubarb stalks are safe to eat, but the leaves contain a compound called oxalic acid, which is toxic to both humans and animals. The most common symptoms of oxalic acid poisoning are stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and a burning or painful sensation in the throat or mouth. That sounds terrible, but we’re not that worried. You’d have to eat several pounds of rhubarb leaves to reach a toxic level. ~Lindsay D. Mattison #Rhubarb: Our plants are heirloom. Just braggin'
Rhubarb is a perennial plant that grows well in cool climates. The stalks are edible, but it’s sometimes planted as an ornamental plant because of its beautiful, vibrant red stalks and wide green leaves. Consumed raw, rhubarb has an intensely tart flav…
